Making It Plain

The title and subject matter for this entry came from a co-worker having the audacity to ask me, "I don't know why you expect something different just because they say they are Christian." I try not to answer people that leave me dumbfounded especially when they profess that we believe in the same God. Let me try to put this in perspective to understand why it is necessary for the purposes of living a single Christian life whether for the purposes of marriage or not. My career is culminated around and smack in the middle of Human Service Professional. This stems from Youth Specialist to Domestic Violence Social Worker, to a Director of a Learning Center and everything in between from the geriatric community to mental wellness of a child. How I treated each and every person initiated from what each person told me about themselves coupled with the answers to my questions. If the person didn't have the same belief system as myself, we tackled their issues one way; but...

What does that mean? How does one feel sexy? Is that the same feeling as lustful or feeling like having sex? I suppose we could understand this from a fleshly perspective with completely different answers. Would these answers be pleasing to God? Of course not, seeing that it is required for us to walk in the Spirit so not to fulfill the lust of the flesh. So then, can a Christian feel sexy with the understanding of that scripture? One of the streams of my financial income is using the talent God gave me to draw. The style I so enjoy is Art Nouveau. In this style there are lots of portraits, females, hair, and flowers. It is very stylistic, ornate, and most definitely feminine. In trying to establish my niche, making the style of Art Nouveau my own, I was inspired to draw several women with flower borders. I drew them in black ink and colored the lips in variations of red and pink. Upon completion, I had more then enough portraits to create a calendar . A woman looked at my illustr...

A term that is more commonly known, to me, as flatulence is also a point in any relationship that kind of defines it. Pause and think about that (selah). If casually farting defines a relationship, it would be interesting what the feedback is without finishing the remainder of this entry. Alright, how can the relationship be defined with passing gas? If a person has become so relaxed around the other that ripping one is acceptable, a discussion would also be on the agenda. Do you know enough about this person for him/her to inhale that foul odor stream in a gas from your hind quarters? Sometimes it just slips out! Does it or is it a means to force the relationship out of the impressing mode to a casual level? Will the lack of bathing and wearing sweat clothes all the live long day be next? If that's acceptable, why not have hairy arm pits and add bad breath too? Fine, let's put the matter in the perspective of the Word by which this entire blog is founded. I recent...

Dr. Creflo Dollar, pastor of World Changers Ministries in College Park Georgia, preached a message that aired on CBS last Sunday, February 11, 2012. In it he was telling all those that could hear him about how to maintain your path of righteousness. He used Joseph as an example that even when he was at his lowest, he was still blessed. His brothers might have sold him as a slave but the man that purchased him, Potiphar,  trusted Joseph and allowed him to have lead over his entire household as if Joseph was the man of the house. The only thing he knew he had not that same allowance was the man's wife. There she was every day watching Joseph as her husband was away until it was too much for her to resist. He wasn't paying any attention to her. Joseph was being about the tasks that were assigned to him. To commit adultery was the farthest thing from Joseph's mind but Potiphar's wife, not having the same moral conviction saw Joseph as a means to satisfy her own lusts. ( Ge...

Apologies are necessary here. In writing this blog with the understanding of everyone starting from a clean slate with Jesus at the helm - no matter how you got there, we are there on the same path. The apology comes in with these entries being for those that continued to stay on the path of righteousness and the ones that went back and forth to resume the old life style that should have passed away and forgotten about ( 2 Corinthians 5:17 AMP ). There is no condemnation here for the choice that you made - we have all been there in one form or another. If its not contemplating whether to stay with the one we chose (without marriage), its hoping that what is obviously horrific to most, isn't as bad as it seems. So here we are with the bucket full of cleaning products. We (you, me, and Jesus) might not get all of those cobwebs and skeletons out of that closet to resume your prayer life - but its going to be a good start if you stick with it. By that I mean getting that slate clean...

Many, many times I listen to ministers begin each and every sermon with,"I would like to thank this or that...blah-blah... and I count this being here as an honor and a privilege to minster to you this morning..." And indeed, as I thought about it, it is an honor to be chosen to preach to God's people. God in as much trusts that speaker to say what He has given the speaker to say. This person has studied, prayed and is well equip to say and pray the way God has instructed him/her to do. The speaker has taken his position seriously and is not just saying what he thinks sounds good just to increase CD sales and to get a hefty love offering in the end. He/she is not just pulling at the heart strings of emotion for the majority of the congregation to run around the church and be all out of breath to trick them in believing that the church service was really good only to try to make account of the words spoken and it was all fluff and nothing to sustain them for the week....

The question is when has one exceeded the overflow? There just comes a time where we have to stop and assess our lives and ask ourselves some practical questions. Is it what God called you to do? Are you doing more than what He said to do? Granted, sometimes we just can't help ourselves being made in His image and He being more than enough; however, after His work, the Word states that He saw and said it is good. There was a moment where He canvased all. When do we see what we have done and can call it good? Was it in God? Was it in ourselves whose agenda is subject to change? God has told us to plan and write it down. He tells us to make it plain . Why would such simple instruction be note worthy? Could it be that we could lose focus, be discouraged by others, be influenced by some other idea, or be predisposed to be a man-pleaser? I believe I wrote about this before; however, I have received new insight on the matter. It was about that ministry where the pastor taught th...

Of course we don't think of ourselves as ever being stuipid. It's always the other guy... and yet without telling anyone some of our actions makes the other guy feel better. I cannot count how many times I have heard the most selfish, arrogant, foolish, things people say and do in  regular conversation. Not the clients I've counseled; not really television; everyday lives of people calling themselves Christian with justifications (sounds like excuses) for doing and believing such nonsense. And then when you ask them to give you scripture (our guide for living) and they get angry at you - like you asked for something crazy! Just because it might sound cool or it makes you feel better when you are angry does not mean we let those words come out of our mouths. We think good things and speak good things. You know, God being good and the greater one on the inside of you or should I just remind you of what your mother use to say: if you don't have anything nice to say, don...

Do you remember a movie entitled, "I'm Gonna Get You Sucka"  starring and directed by Keenan Ivory Wayans? If not, you should see it. Though released over 20 years ago (1988), it was one of the first African American films that had me laughing so hard I couldn't hardly breathe. At least with home viewing you can stop the DVD finish processing the scene, get up from rolling on the floor laughing, and start it again. Anyway, in the movie there was this one scene when Keenan's character met the woman of his dreams. She seemed to have fit all of his criteria and she was just as interested in him as he was in her. Not showing any signs of restraint they took it to another level and was going to have sex. She decided to be completely honest with him right then and show that all he saw that he was attracted to came off when she went to bed. When she was finished discarding all of her man-made parts, she began to hobble after him and his affection for her that he once h...

My mother use to say, "a son is a son until he gets a wife; but a daughter is a daughter all of her life." Though it may have not meant much to my brother, it put enormous pressure on my sisters and myself wondering what we had to face later on. It wasn't unitl I became an adult and found hidden truths in the Word of God that delivered me from my mother's limmrick. The generation before me worried about their golden years and the future that social security had for their children. We know that in Christ, we are already provided for (Philippians 4:19 AMP); therefore, those concerns can be casted over on Him (1 Peter 5:7 AMP)  and we can resume to enjoy the promises again. However, for men, the knowledge and understanding to do that which has been uncommonly weighed upon women should be agiven. Men should not have pressure to be resonsible and stand to provide for their families. It use to be a regular practice. What's happened over these last decades that change...